Your Name is Gary Stu and You're Going to Die First

Read part 8 here, or from the beginning, here. Sunday Linh stood in the center of the field, hands on her hips, chest rising and falling heavy with exertion. Her practice jersey clung to a pool of sweat on her lower back. The early afternoon sun beat down on the open field and started to thaw the spring frozen ground as the team ran drills. They had been out since eight that morning running drills, obstacles, working the fundamentals of the game to get ready for the summer season. Linh let her arms drop and reared up for the drive. She kicked the ball straight into the center of the goal, jogging off to the back of the line when she was done. Letting her teammates take their shot. “Pointless,” she mumbled under her breath. They had been at it all day, and now they had just been taking shots for the last half hour to a goalie less goal. The summer season wasn't that serious. It was an amateur league that they used to prep for the actual season in the fall. The Loyola Ramblers...

Read part 7 here, or from the beginning, here. CW: sexual harassment and manipulation “There's going to be a rally,” Trent sat in front of Anthony's desk in the basement office at Osaka-Ya. He gripped his knees and looked around the office nervously. It was a cramped office, dark like the rest of the basement, lit by a single uncovered bulb in the center over the desk. There were filing cabinets lining the walls behind Anthony and the desk was piled with paperwork. It looked like tax returns and financial statements for the restaurant—a pile of receipts threatened to topple over the edge of the desk and onto the floor. Trent thought that perhaps it wouldn't matter if they did, it didn't look like they were in any sort of order anyway. Apparently running a restaurant was secondary to the running of a cult. “Next weekend, I guess.” Anthony nodded and turned to his computer and opened a new tab in his browser. Trent glanced at the screen, there were several tabs open ...